A gang of 4 men has been arrested for faking a public bus to rob passengers in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, Yangcheng Evening News reports. more ›

Conan O'Brien has responded to Da Peng's apology, and even gifts the Sohu talk show host with a new opening sequence! Coco (not very convincingly) admits that he feels bad for making Da Peng feel bad, and even trots out his own "There Was No Need to Apologize, Sorry for Making You Feel Bad" dance in response to Da Peng's Sorry Dance. more ›

Conan O'Brien was shown footage of a Chinese TV program ripping off his opening sequence graphics, and responded in kind (with help from Andy Richter!) with his own take on the shanz-tastic show at the heart of the mild Conan controversy. The footage has now come full circle, after being uploaded on Sohu. more ›

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Chinese manufacturers are increasingly "faking" popular Indian products of consumer goods giants such as Dabur and ITC, undermining the legitimacy of brands and causing losses worth as much as $5 billion annually, officials said. more ›

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A report released on Monday by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed that the US military's ever expanding supply chain is rife with counterfeit parts, the majority of them coming from China. Fake parts were found installed on seven aircraft, on systems manufactured by Raytheon Co., L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., and Boeing Co. more ›

Gaopeng aka Groupon China continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. The group-buying site has been caught with its pants down for selling fake Tissots and a class action suit is underway: more ›

As doubts continue to surface about the video that has gone viral over the last few days which showed passersby rush to aid a pregnant woman who collapsed in Luxun Park on Sunday, Erma Shanghai Co, the company that employs several of the people seen in the video, has now finally admitted that the video was staged. But only part of the video was staged, not all of it, and the company had no part to play in planning the video, said a spokesperson. more ›

Heyo! The In-N-Out knockoff burger joint has a website, and they are calling themselves CaliBurger™. As in trademarked. You know what they've also trademarked? All of In-N-Out's secret menu options in Eastern Europe, Eastern Asia, and Australia. According to them, anyway: more ›

It would have been so much easier if China had put a full stop to the sordid affair of the Confucius Peace Prize, but nope, authorities have decided to charge ahead with their public relations trainwreck. Apparently, a rival group calling themselves the "Confucius Prize for World Peace" quietly emerged on September 21, the International Day of Peace -- that's one whole week before we found out the original organisers had been disbanded. more ›

Think the RMB25 cut-wash-blow at your local salon is a bargain? Think again. Chinese news reports are now saying that a lot of the shampoo used in hair salons around China are just cheap blends of thickener, fragrance, shampoo powder and water costing between 0.4-1.2 yuan per kilo. In some of the more extreme cases, experts have found the shampoo to contain mercury, sulfur or benzene. This could either damage your hair, cause you to go bald, or even give you cancer. more ›

Confirmed: That In-N-Out we showed you yesterday is a fake. Someone from In-N-Out headquarters has written in to CityWeekend to inform them that the burger chain has definitely no plans for Shanghai in the immediate future:

“In response to your question, we hope to expand as far as we can, but do not have any immediate plans for Shanghai at this time. We do hope to continue expanding, but are always careful not to open a new location until we can guarantee the same quality food and service as we provide in our existing locations. But thanks to customers like you, hopefully you will see us in more areas in the future!”

We promise you we have our best people working on this. A few photos of what appears to be an In-N-Out ad taken in Shanghai have spurred speculation online that we could be going it 'animal style' in the foreseeable future. Update: We are hearing from multiple sources close to the company that this ad is, unfortunately, absolutely fake. But we'll take a fake In-n-Out over none, right? more ›

Yowza. While we thought Jon Huntsman was being a bit hyperbolic the other day with his claim of Chinese government sponsored hacking (which turned out to have more substantial proof than first thought), it turns out the real China fearmongering horse in the Republican race is Mitt Romney. more ›

Last month, international media had a field day when an American blogger in Kunming discovered a fake Apple store that showed an unusual level of fidelity to the original. But as anyone who's been to an electronics market in China knows, this isn't exactly news. However, there's a new well-conceived copycat concept in Kunming that's caught our attention this week: none other than Swedish furniture-for-lazy-people giant IKEA has received the royal shanzhai treatment! more ›

This is taking China's shanzhai animation to an entirely new level. Watch a synchronized, scene-by-scene comparison of Japanese cartoon Hikarian (铁胆火车侠 in Chinese) that aired in the 1990s, with a Chinese cartoon called "Bullet Train Boy" (高铁侠) made for release this year by Shenyang Animation. more ›

This should be welcome news to anyone who has been a victim of China's notorious shanzhai alcohol. As of Thursday, China's food safety regulators have launched a nationwide campaign to battle unlicensed, counterfeit, and smuggled liquor. The new rollout contains new stringent procedures for liquor license applications, more frequent inspections, as well as tracing and accountability mechanisms. The regulatory board had harsh words for smugglers saying the illegal transportation of liquors would "severely cracked down on" and that counterfeiters and unlicensed producers would be punished, shut down, and blacklisted.
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The town of Hallstatt in Austria is considered one of the most beautiful villages in the world. It's so beautiful that the town is looked after by UNESCO. So a Chinese firm has decided that if they can't fly it to China, they'll build a replica (right down to the lake) in Huizhou Guangdong Province.

One of the planned shops will have Austrian souvenirs for homesick Europeans from Hong Kong. UNESCO isn't sure if copying a town is legal - taking pictures is legal, but making copies without permission of the town may not be okay.

The 800 residents of the original town are not pleased that their town is being photocopied. "I don't like the idea a team was here for years measuring, photographing and studying us," said Monika Wenger, who owns an inn in the village. Alex Scheutz, the mayor of the village, says the "people are not very impressed," but he says it will be good for tourism.

China's copied European towns before, like "British Town" in Chengdu, modeled after Dorchester. There's also a mini-Barcelona, a mini-Venice and a Scandanavian town homage.
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It looks like an iPhone, feels like an iPhone, and it even appears to have the iOS. Introducing the GooApple, the shanzhai phone that's a complete rip-off of the iPhone 4, except that it runs on Android 2.2. And if the English-language demo below (yeah, shanzhai-makers are seriously upping their game these days) is to be trusted, it seems to run really well too. Unfortunately we weren't able to find any prices on the GooApple website which is now accepting pre-orders, but if prices on Taobao are any indication, older GooApple models are going for between RMB1060 and RMB1430. more ›

Why wait for the launch of the iPad 3 when you can build it yourself? This guy shows us the ultimate in DIY shanzhai: Watch him painstakingly saw, file, screw, mount the motherboard, put together the other parts of his home-made tablet, install Windows XP (*gasp*), and lovingly apply his finishing touch with an Apple logo sticker! The end-product really doesn't look too bad at all for a homemade gadget made in just two weeks -- it's got a touchscreen, keyboard and a nice case to go along with it. We'd be happy to buy it off this guy -- provided he can stick in some other operating system that's not the XP! more ›

For those of you worrying over the fate of the new Lenovo-backed video game console, breathe a deep sigh of relief. After missing their November 2010 domestic launch date, CEO of Lenovo subsidiary eedoo Technology Jack Luo announced on Friday that the iSec, short for 'Sports Entertainment Center', would launch in the second half of 2011, and would only be sold outside of China if domestic sales topped 1 million units. more ›

Shanghaiist reader Andy Shum sent us the following screengrabs from a 1st season episode of Criminal Minds, a CBS police procedural drama that premiered September 2005, that also happens to be one of the most popular US TV series on Tudou. "This, being episode 20," says Shum, "would have aired in May, 2006. Coincidence?" more ›

In case the China-made World of Warcraft wasn't enough for you - there is a chance you could get yourself to a World of Warcraft theme park sometime soon... heck, there'll be a Starcraft world thrown in to boot! The internet has been buzzing with news about a new amusement park called Joyland (website here) that's just itching to put you next to a Protoss on your next rollercoaster ride. more ›

Now are those real police Segways or shanzhai ones? We will never know but we sure are looking forward to the summer when they patrol the square with their segways and umbrellas! That will be such a sight to behold! more ›

Because those damn pigs deserve to be knocked around by irate poultry outside of a tiny smartphone screen too! What's next, a carnival booth of Bejeweled? How about a real life version of Fruit Ninja? more ›

Circulating wildly now on Sina Weibo and the Taiwanese media -- Starfucks, a shanzhai cafe, located in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province. We dug around a little and found that Liuzhou Laowai discovered this gem in March. Maybe he can give us an update on how it's doing? more ›

The Wii had barely arrived on the scene when some enterprising Chinese company came up with the Vii, so it's not that surprising that a Chinese version of the highly touted game-changing Kinect (and Move) would be invented now... or, in fact, six months ago. While the name I-dong is reminiscent of some kind of virtual sex toy, its creators insist it is wholesome fun for people who like to move (爱动 - ai dong). more ›

The Yosion Apple Peel 5210: Heard of it? It’s a docking device that turns a regular Apple iPod Touch into an iPhone 3 (of sorts), and appeared in beta form on Taobao a couple of months ago to cautiously enthusiastic reviews from Chinese tech blogs. The device was buggy and its inventors admitted in interview to lack of funding, amateurish business skills and concerns about legality. more ›

Sadly my wallet can't accommodate a watch priced from $240+ when a cheap Casio will do the same job sans the cool LED lights and head scratching when trying to tell the time. more ›